Certain Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) networks connect a number of computing devices over links based on TDMA technology. With TDMA, network access is subdivided to between a number of computers to within a number of sequential time slots. One computing device is allocated the use of the network during each time slot within a time frame. A computing device may be awake for a particular timeslot if it is transmitting or receiving data within that time slot. To conserve power (particularly in wireless networks and/or with battery operated computing devices such as personal display assistants (PDAs) and hand-held or cellular telephones) it may be desired to let computing devices go to sleep during those time slots that they are not transmitting or receiving data. However, waking up a computing device also consumes considerable power. As such, power management of computing devices within a network often involves this balancing of the power consumed by keeping computing devices awake compared to the power consumed by letting certain computing devices go to sleep, and soon thereafter waking up the computing devices.
Certain computing devices, wireless and cellular telephones, PDAs, and wireless electronic devices use batteries. Reducing energy consumption for battery-based computing devices increases the battery charge lifetime for the devices. Power consumption is often related to whether the computing device is kept awake, allowed to go to sleep, or transitioned between an awake state and an asleep state. Power management becomes an important factor in designing computing devices that can operate on the networks for extended periods.
It would be beneficial to improve the power management for computing devices.